an save when you choose by the gig or unlimited. call, or go to xfinitymobile.com. xfinity mobile. it's a new kind of network designed to save you money. welcome to "inside politics." i'm dana dash. john king is off. this morning president trump says he is hard at work on his vacation, and if twitter counts, that is certainly true. the barrage of morning presidential tweets from his new jersey resort show a commander in chief, touting accomplishments and attacking a senator and, of course, the media. plus, unusually strong pushback from the vice president who was pledging loyalty to his boss after a report alleges he is positioning himself to run

for president. just in case trump doesn't. then -- the u.n. hits north korea with the -- what the u.s. is calling a gut punch. new, harsher sanctions, which the trump administration hopes will pull pyongyang back from the nuclear ledge. >> the best signal that north korea could give us that they're prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches. >> and the russia alleged meddling probe picks up speed prompting a change in tune from the president's lawyers, and a public reminder for the special counsel. >> bob mueller understand and i understand the specific scope of the investigation, and so, no, it's not a fishing expedition. >> with us to share their reporting and insights, cnn manu raju, bloomberg's margaret toll irv, michael boren of "the weekly standard" and jackie kucinich of "the daily beast." 200 days into the new administration president trump wants to convince you he has done a lot.

in a tornado of morning tweets, the commander in chief gave himself his own report card, in his view, achievements from every corner of the administration, stock market higher, jobs booming, security tighter, regulations slashed. on some of those issues, like the supreme court nominee, he certainly does get an a. on others you might say the president is grading himself on a curve. today at the 200-day mark, he signed over one major legislative item into law. a russia sanctions bill he never wanted to reach his desk in the first place, calling it seriously flawed. now it was just one week ago that the new white house chief of staff entered the west wing with a mission to inject some military discipline into a chaotic administration. the dysfunction permeating the white house had no doubt contributed to the president's poll numbers at historic lows, along with the nagging russia investigation. the president routinely

dismisses this as a hoax. on cnn's "new day" this morning, democratic senator richard blumenthal talked about the most consistent source of the president's anger. the ongoing special counsel probe, which sources say expanded into a possible financial crimes investigation. bloomberg's appearance was followed by this -- a retweet, drive-by presidential attack on the connecticut democrat for being a vietnam con artist who eventually "cried like a baby and begged forgiveness like a child." the president was referring to the fact senator blumenthal had to apologize in 2010 for misrepresenting his vietnam war service. and a senator from connecticut clearly got under the president's skin talking about russia and one of my takeaways from this is, mr. president, thanks for watching cnn this morning. start right there. what do you make of, manu, of this tweet storm this morning? is it just that he woke up on a monday and, you know, frustrated

by something he saw on cnn? or is it more than that? >> i think it's a variety of things. it's the 200-day mark and knows the press will talk about his accomplishments, or lack thereof. it's the fact that the russia investigation is still dominating the news. something that, of course, he continues to call a hoax, a witch-hunt, fake news. and it's also the story in the "new york times" that he clearly read on sunday suggesting that other republicans are looking at his low poll numbers and thinking about whether to run, and attacking the "new york times" in that first tweet today saying that his base is stronger than ever, when, in fact, look at poll numbers, his base is still at 36%, 37%. what his problem is, he's losing support from other republicans and certainly not getting support from democrats or independents, which would suggest he's expanding his base here. >> and we'll talk more about the vice president part of that, but one of the most telling quotes from that piece was from john

mccain. i think we have it and can put it on the screen. trying to sum up the reality what's happening. he said, john mccain said, they see weakness in this president. look, it's not a nice business for him. ouch. margaret, you had a great story yesterday about the guy who is now the chief of staff. the retired general john kelly, who is trying to get order into the white house, but you had something that was very present from the your reporting in your piece. put it on the screen. trump has made it cleefr, howev clear, however, he ignores advice on tweets. since joining the social media platform in 2009 he sent over 35,000 of them. that is an interesting kind of dynamic here, that, you know, john kelly is going to control what he can control. and i think -- you know, he's -- he's defining the mission. the mission, don't go there on the president's tweet.

>> i think it's a little of both. you have seen the president restrained in some foreign policy areas in his tweets over the course of the last week. maybe a coincidence. we'll know after two, three, four weeks. you know. but our reporting told us on a couple of really hot button issues, venezuela, russia, north korea, the new chief of staff and the team, you know, between the national security staff, the president's dialed back. part of me wonders if among other factors in this morning's constant twitter storm, besides the 200-day mark and besides the pence story, was the fact after a weekend of coverage about how john kelly is going to tame the president, maybe that's not -- a real calibration of the message here. i think the president and his team do want the news out they're getting their house in

order. the whole chaos story line is old and tired and they're putting it behind them. on the other hand, everybody knows the president and presumably mnuchin's staff don't want anybody to upend the president. >> and kevin liptack has great reporting this morning saying that kelly doesn't view managing trump's social media as his chief responsibility and that kelly has spoken with trump about twitter and offered suggestions, but doesn't have any expectations that he is going to completely change the way that he tweets. >> yes. general kelly came into the ejo with clear eyes is what that suggests's what kelly actually has done to change things in the west wing. a lot more substantive than whether or not donald trump is tweeting things that a normal president might not. we have the call to jeff sessions essentially assuring him that he's safe in his job. that was, of course a

precondition for taking the job. h.r. mcmaster, really being pillared by bannon folks, allies, outside of the white house. >> big time. >> basically also secure in his job. and presidential stigma out there saying, that i support h.r. mcmaster. i think that is really what john kelly's been brought in to do and so far has been successful. we can laugh, i think, appropriately at the tweets, but that doesn't seem to be what -- john kelly's worried about everything else below the chief of staff. not above. >> a big, big thing to try to organize the white house that was not properly organized. on that, or i shouldn't say properly. not traditionally organized. >> traditionally, yes. >> rahm emanuel, now mayor of chicago, was chief of staff, the first one for president obama. hear what he said about being chief of staff on cnn this morning. >> look, i mean, first of all, if you asked me as a are toer chief of staff, anybody that's been a chief of staff it's more an element, more a jersey with

shoulder pads. not what he does as head of the staff but as chief, firstal off of equals among the president. if the president's trusts him, that's 99% of the game right there, seems like right now the president does. haven't seen indication otherwise. he's always talked up. i keep on trying to call him secretary and general. chief of staff john kelly. and john kelly has gone to bat for the president publicly. via on the wiretapping issue. be it on the travel ban. so he has sort of earned the president's trust at this point. now, the longevity of that, we'll have to see. another thing about the tweets that was interesting, kind of old favorites. it was the media. it was democrats. he could have, with this pence story gone after ben sasse and some of the republicans that were named as sort of -- sort of seeing theirs blood in the water. he didn't. he didn't. >> could have gone after his vice president. >> could have done that, too.

>> instead went after the "new york times." look at one of the tweets in this morning. the fails "new york times" made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win apologized is totally inept. never mind he talks to the "new york times" more than anyone else. leave that aside. >> and apologized. >> yeah. but this is also following on something really extraordinary yesterday. the vice president of the united states releasing a formal statement saying that the "new york times" story, saying basically it's a shadow campaign, getting ready for 2020 to run as president is wrong. i want to read the vice president's statement again. today's article in the "new york times" is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family and our entire team. the allegations in this article are categorically false and represent the latest 25e6rattem the media to divide this administration. so that added a lot of oxygen to the story, and from my reporting, my understanding is that people in pence world understood it would add oxygen

but felt on balance, they'd rather add oxygen and at least try to put and end to it for the boss and for the vice president at least due to loyalty than anything else. >> well, for pence in particular, such a core part of his brand. the idea of loyalty and propriety. not getting out in front of your skis. being modest. it's like the pence brand. get real for a second. everybody's always running for president. the question is, when? what year? how pro actively? are you really just keeping opposites purely in reserve, versus kind of nudging out there? so for them, it was important, i think, to maintain that core part of the brand. partly for that audience, and partly for everyone else, too. how unseemly would that look, right? >> the way they're doing it, remarkable. the vice president's press secretary was on fox this morning. he's doing cnn tonight on erin burnett. >> on msnbc.

>> i listened to him on patriot radio. how many hits are you doing? i don't know. lost count. such an offensive to try to put this to bed, but, again, the more they talk about it, the more they are just breathing oxygen into the notion that -- into the idea that originated with the story that the vice president is -- is courting donors and getting ready -- if not -- i will just say, briefly, another white house source said, told me that what the response should have been, which is, the idea that he's running for himself is not true. just running for the 2020 ticket and leave it at that. >> the kellyanne conway message. >> yeah. exactly. >> unpack that. being on all of these stations and pushing back on this. this is a professional political operation that mike pence has. this is not his first rodeo. he knows what he's doing. ran for congress several times. he ran for governor. whether or not he is actually

seriously -- whichy a think despite the statement saying it was categorically false, i don't think anything in the "new york times" about what pence world is doing is false. reveals they are looking at the mueller investigation. looking at all of the, the struggles that this president's had over 200 days and political -- not to do this. >> and we know, too. incredibly important for president trump is loyalty. and if he senses the vice president is not loyal, that could mean big problems for the vice president, and interesting to learn whether or not they had conversations about this pushback as well. >> a big question. stand by. a lot more to talk about. up next, president trump called the russia investigation a witch-hunt and a hoax, but his secretary of state has a much more serious assessment of moscow's meddling.

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depending on which trump administration officials talking

russia meddling in america's election ranges from fake news to something pretty serious. consider these comments from secretary of state rex tillerson, who just met with his russian counterpart for the first time since president trump signed a new sanctions bill punishing moscow. >> we talked about it in the discussion we had with minister lavrov yesterday, and trying to help them understand just how serious this incident had been and how seriously it had damaged the relationship between the u.s., the american people, and the russian people. that this had created serious mistrust. between our two countries. and that we simply have to find some way to deal with that. >> so there you have the top american diplomat describing russia's election meddling as serious, yet just last week tillerson's boss, the president, called the russia story a hoax and as for new sanctions against russia that congress basically

forced him to sign because it passed with such broad bipartisan a support the president blamed lawmakers for damping ties with moscow tweeting, a relationship with russia is at an all-time and very dangerous low. you can thank congress. the same people that can't even give us health care. and, jackie, john mccain tweeted back, oh, no. you can thank russia for meddling in if our elections. what do you think about that really big mixed message? >> seems to me different audiences. tillerson is talking to the international community, talking to allies, reeli irelays a convn he just had with russia. whereas the president is messaging to his base. messaging to democrats in defiance, and in terms of, and to congress who challenged his executive power. and i don't think any president would really react well to what congress did in this instance. so that seemed -- that would explain the disparity, to me. >> and also the president

himself is almost on an island when it comes to russia. >> right. >> he is on an island. yeah. >> very true. >> and one of the only people who questions whether or not russia did in fact meddle in the elections saying perhaps china was involved too too. not nearly as definitively as his own intelligence committee has been saying. so the president, even as tillerson, nikki haley over the weekend, taking a tough tone. she did a, has done in the past on russia did it to north korea. the president himself saying something differently, almost undercuts the message that his own cabinet officials are saying. >> it's almost as if the president is sort of conflating the question of russia meddling, trying to meddle in the election with somehow taking away from his own election win. >> that's his -- consistent problem. he hears russia meddling and hears, they don't think i'm a legitimate president. >> exactly. but administration officials are looking at intelligence, who understand what actually did

happen, and really our concern about those, those concerns, right, whether or not his election was legitimate, though they it's legitimate and why you're hearing dis -- you're right, manu. he's on an island of one about this and it has a weird cognitive dissidence. >> exactly. talk about the probe. cnn reported last week that the special counsel has expanded to look at financial investments, ties with the president, his family and aides, and rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general, who appointed the special counsel, did his first big interview over the weekend and talked about the scope of the investigation. listen to this. >> the special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the department of justice and we don't engage exp. we don't reveal who we investigate publicly, but bob mueller understand and i understand the specific scope of the investigation. no, it's not a fishing

expedition. if he finds evidence of a crime within the scope of what director mueller and i agreed is appropriate he can. something outside that scope he needs to come to the acting attorney general, at this time, me, for permission to expand his investigation. >> he was very, lawyerly with those words. but sounded to me like permission has been granted. >> he's not saying he wouldn't grant the permission, that's for sure. look, on the russian election meddling, there are two tracks. what the administration is doing behind the scenes both defensively to protect for future elections and offensively in terms of anything classified they'd consider and not talking about with us, and then the public messaging. the white house and the president may have calculated it doesn't matter what they say to the public. what matters they're protecting future elections, if in fact they are. but the real ral tohetorical pr, calling out russians for what happened in the election is not the same as delegitimizing the

president. and -- if you behave as though it is, you link these two when, in fact, if nothing weird happened they're not linked. >> exactly. and a lot of pushback. even more pushback. bring this to you, manu. you are cnn's eyes and ears and pretty much the world's on capitol hill when it comes to russia because you are everywhere at once. thom tillis is, a republican working on bipartisan legislation making sure mueller has hayes job. listen to what he said this weekend how he views the investigation. >> i'm not sure that i agree with the witch-hunt and we'll let the facts lead us to whether or not it was a hoax or a distraction, but we where we are and i want to see this investigation concluded so that we can get on to doing the good work that had presidential already started with regulatory reform, health care and tax reform. >> he's hardly an outlier as it refers to republicans pushing

back on the president calling his a witch-hunt. >> absolutely. the fact he's come out with a bipartisan bill to say essentially, if you do fire up a special counsel, there has to be a judicial review to make sure that this is actually done legally, and some sort of recourse to prevent them from doing that. it shows that there is significant concern about the president taking the steps, something they claim he has not discussed, but has not ruled out, the question for me is -- does this actually get a vote in the senate judiciary committee? does chuck grassley, willing to take on the president on key issues, willing to take this up and will mitch mcconnell put this on the floor? if there's more concerns the president may takes steps with mueller, you may see -- >> preventative action. >> a significant moment for him to say that. >> why? >> wee in the media like to thk we know everything going on but we don't. you have allies of the president saying this is a fishing

expedition because it's going into finances. rod rosenstein is the one who wrote that memo. every time i ask the special counsel's office, they just say, look at the memo. look at the memo. >> the memo that defines parameters? a great point. >> we don't know exactly what, why rosenstein set up the special counsel entirely. we know bits and pieces of it but don't know everything. very important to keep in mind. >> glad you added that. everybody stand by. up next, lawmakers are back home for the rest of the summer. will republicans be able to convince frustrated voters that their agenda is on track? if you have medicare

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go long.

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it's so fluffy! look at that fluffy unicorn! he's so fluffy i'm gonna die! your voice is awesome. the x1 voice remote. xfinity. the future of awesome. president trump isn't the only elected official taking a so-called working vacation. capitol hill is empty, too. except for staffers who get to come to work in gearanjeans bec congress is out of session.

manu raju didn't get the mopeem because he's in a suit. and alaska's republican senator lisa murkowski tweeted after ten hours flying cross country, good to get out biking and end with refreshments at neighborhood lemonade fans. and senator susan collins at a lodge in maine over weekend and senator jeff flake tweeted at the view in his home state of arizona. senators, they're just like us. in all seriousness, this is crucial time for republicans. lawmakers are bracing for a hammering from frustrated voters over a stalled gop ajend dahr. keep agenda. the gop agenda is on track, could be fatal for some republicans next year at the ballot box. jackie, look at this from yesterday's "wall street journal." it said this -- a quote from congressman mike kelly. back home people aren't mad at the president. they're mad at the republican party for not working with the

president to try to get things done. said mike kelly, who hears complaints while doing errands at walmart in a district trump easily won. play this from scott taylor. >> i think congress has been the punching bag for many presidents. as you know, we don't have a king. you have to play well with others and you have to get along with the legislative branch as well to enact your policies. as a president. so i don't think we're to blame. absolutely not. for some things, possibly, but not everything, certainly. >> that's a -- well, i think republicans just haven't had a good answer to what have you been doing for seven years? where is your alternative? when you talk to senators that say to me off the record, we knew no one would sign it then. so these were -- these were -- not real -- not real votes but were -- >> political votes. >> political votes. and you can't say that to a

constituent and expect a straight face that doesn't turn into a grimace. and that isn't the president's fault. it just isn't. that they were not prepared with something to offer when he said, okay. where's my health care reform bill? >> and the other big problem, talked a huge game coming in right after the election. paul ryan, house speaker, said this is going to be a unified republican government. we're going to show what we can do as a unified republican government at the retreat in february in pennsylvania, laid out a very ambitious time frame. get health care reform done by spring. get tax reform done by the august recess. and as we know, health care pushed until the august recess, failed on that front, and tax reform, who knows what will happen to that let alone infrastructure and the rest of the agenda. strikes me also, dana, the fact that some presidents come into this town, try to dominate congress. some get dominated by congress. this is a president who's been dominated by congress. he cannot get his agenda

through. the one big piece of legislation he got through he didn't want. the sanctions bill for russia. >> you mention paul ryan. put up on the screen what a republican voter in his district in wisconsin said to the associated presses. paul ryan? i don't know what he's done for the foxconn deal. a huge deal to bring a big manufacturer into his district. they're all working on this stupid health care crap. and then i also want to play something that paul ryan himself said over the weekend about this whole notion of why things aren't getting done. >> our frustration in this unified government is that it takes more to get things through the senate than we would like. the administration is ready to get the bill signed. the house sending bills to the senate. we have over 200 bills sitting in the senate that the house has passed they have not acted on, and that is where the chokehold is right now. >> we all had dimes for every time anybody in the house of eth aer party complained about the senate chokeholding the agenda

we'd all be very, very rich. >> this is a problem here where basically every part of the republican congress, whether the house or the senate, conservatives moderates, all kind of partly to blame here. so you have this problem where nobody's really pointing the finger. it's important to remember the president's role in a situation like this. a unified congress underneath a president of the same party. this is the place where the president comes in and sort of puts pressure on those recalcitrant members. brings in the interest groups, to get everybody in sort of outside onboard. this president hasn't done any of that from the very beginning of the health care debate, for instance. right after the first failure, uk taed to somebody at the white house. so where was the outside support for this? no organizing of outside groups? >> the fact the outside groups, if you heard from them, in opposition. >> exactly. a very late meeting late in the process, and just didn't do it. this is a role for the president in our current system and this is a president who's not playing

that role. >> and margaret, is part of the issue just that, you know, who donald trump is? he did come in as an outsider. he did, many republicans think, took a, a hostile takeover of the republican party. why the voters loved him. because he's not your average guy, which is, which has benefits in getting elected, certainly poses challenges in governing. >> part is who he is and part who the republican caucus is. and this russia sanctions bill as humiliating for the would us to swallow is a gift in a sense. at least for john kelly as he hits his effort at a reset button which is for the president and the team tom say, okay. we get it now. we get it. we understand we have to work with republicans. not against the republicans. or this is the kind of thing that's going to happen and on tax reform, now taken on paramount importance. it's entirely likely we'll talk about a tax cut, not a tax reform at this point. is now all the pressure is on this. >> and still very difficult to

achieve. i asked mcconnell this. how do you sell the fact you did not pass health care to vote, and promising this so many years? first thing he said was, justice neil gorsuch. that's what he's going to say. see if it works with the base. >> and do you think that -- when we talk about the 200-day mark and tend to think about this in terms of legislation as the test whether they've gotten anything done. administration got a tremendous amount done in terms of rolling regulations, friendlier community for businesses and -- >> that's true it. >> this stuff is important if you can find a way to message it without alienating swing voters. >> the president did do. he talked about regulations. done executive orders, president obama did it, an imperial president. a whole other conversation. up next, new sanctions and demands on north korea triggering new threats from

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north korea vowing to retaliate against the u.s. in response to a new sanctions approved unanimously this weekend by the united nations. this as the secretary of state calls on the rogue regime to stop its missile tests. rex tillerson was speaking at the regional -- excuse me. regional security conference in the philippines. >> the best signal that north korea could give us that they're prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches. so this is not, give me 30 days and we're ready to talk. it's not quite that simple. so it is all about how we see their attitude towards approaching a dialogue with us. >> north korea's government said in a statement today that "the u.s. manipulated the u.n. security council to rig up this sanctions resolution. the democratic peoples republican lick of korea will

make the u.s. pay dearly for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country." and just this morning president trump spoke to tillerson and white house chief of staff general kelly about those sanctions. let's bring in our barbara starr and barbara, i feel you and i could could be having this conversation during the obama administration, during the bush administration, during the clinton administration. the same problem just getting worse and worse. >> reporter: it is. and it's getting worse and worse, of course, because north korea is accelerating their weapons development with those two icbm tests just weeks apart, continuing to work on their nuclear warhead program and as this rhetoric shows today, showing absolutely no inclination to sit down and talk or even ratchet back on their program at all. so you begin to see a lot of discussion about, well, what about a u.s. military option? could there be such a thing? even as a limited u.s. strike, a

pre-emptive military strike, a lot of skeptis about what could happen if this did go to a military solution, and preeminent amongst them, the former director of intellgence james clapper, while he served as general in the u.s. air force, served in the korean theater and knows a lot about the intelligence out there. have a listen to what he had to say about all of this earlier today. >> i realize we had to keep the military option on the table to use would a phrase, but i think particularly preentry military operation against north korea would be disastrous. because i believe the north koreans would unleash all artillery and rocketry lined um along the dmz and would as they have vowed many times turn seoul into "a sea of fire." >> reporter: and one of the biggest supporters of not going to a military solution, at least not at this point, defense

secretary james mat istis continuing to warn military action to lead to global disaster. dana? >> thank you, barbara starr. margaret, i was just with vice president pence and we went to the dmz in april and it is true. i mean, the tension was already pretty high then. and the concern is, is sky high in south korea in japan and in the neighboring areas. concern about what a pre-emptive strike could mean. it's still unclear whether that is putting the teeth behind diplomacy or whether it's real. >> right. and another area the chief of staff john kelly will be incredibly important guiding who gets in the door to talk to the president, what they talk about. his relationship, friendship, wall him with the generals or particularly mattis at the pentagon will be incredibly crucial at this point and his support for general mcmaster and that course of action also important, and another area to look at, the emphasis the u.s. is placing on diplomacy with

some of the complicated relationships. russia is part of it, to be sure. part of the administrational explanation for why they just want to chill things out with russia a little bit is importance of working on stuff with north korea. look at china'sthe most important potential partner and a balancing act between trade and the clear signals the u.s. wants to send to china on trade versus the imperative of getting china to work with hem on north korea is something you really see playing out. >> the fact of the matter is, nikki haley and the trump administration were able to get china and russia onboard with this resolution, and people argue whether or not it really, this resolution imposing greater sanctions is really that strong. it does target coal, iron, ore, lead, seafood and other items. and a country where most are

starving already, it could. give credit where credit is due. getting those countries onboard with something like this at the u.n. is no small task. >> and china describing, too, significant an shows a shift in approach dealing with that country and comes after the russia sanctions bill the president did not want to sign included in sanctions against north korea as well. i think largely, though, this also does show that presidents are always influenced by outside events beyond their control, and north korea's one that has spent numerous administrations -- it's one issue that is going to continue to percolate, an outside event that will force its commander in chief to respond inny was we have not seen before, and it's an example that things are just outside the control, and you are the president of the united states. >> that's why he is, as you answer, the president is on a working vacation and when you are president, i don't care who you are, you do work. no matter where you are, what time it is, and another tweet from this weekend from the

president just completed a call with president moon of south korea, happy and impressed that the united nations vote on north korea sanctions. >> yes. i think it's important to appreciate just how bad the situation is and how there are no good options. >> none. >> and that is why you're getting this sort of disparity of rhetoric from people in the administration. a lot of disagreement withining the administration about what to do. one thing i think that should be said for military options is not so simple as, to say, you know what? it is sort of a em-emptive strike. there are other docother -- int a missile in the sea. other missiles in alaska, there are other military options here and they all have their own risks and what could happen if the u.s. does act. but that's kind of the situation the president finds himself in. >> everybody stand by. up next, twitter isn't the only way president trump is bypassing

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to say that president trump doesn't like the mainstream media may be the understatement of the century. he routinely takes to twitter to correct the record as he sees it. for example, a tweet yesterday lashing out at the press for not putting positive spin on what he's accomplished so far. on his facebook page you may notice the president is using a new tool to convey his message. >> hey, everybody. i'm kailee mcenay. thank four joining us providing the news of the week from trump tower here in new york. the july jobs report add add better than expected 209,000 jobs. >> and kayleigh mcenany, our

friend and former contriutor here at cnn ends the video by saying, "and that is the real news." i mean -- this takes the whole notion of going around us to a new level. what do you think, jackie? >> i mean, i think you have to say "it's the real news" sort of -- >> like a balance? >> precisely. and it does seem like, this administration has gotten assist from certain people at certain networks like fox. that said, you have seen other administrations do something like this and maybe not necessarily this blatant as trump tv, but it's not new that you see administrations pushing out videos, a little more happy talk than you would see from a -- an actual news outlet. >> yes. and then barney cam, a little bit more -- >> right. and -- >> a little different. >> i will never say anything bad about barney. >> nobody should. and happy for a pet cam from the trump administration, too. i want to read you -- remember,

scaramucci. put out a, well, prepared a memo that cnn obtained that he never actually got to put forward, because he was only there for five minutes, but he, in this he said, potus is the greatest tv star in histories. coms should produce video content that constructively operates at the president donald j. trump show. i should remind viewers back in 2016, be honest, even the trump world did not think he was going to win for president, they were preparing trump tv. i mean, actually had some rehearsals, and remember the "vanity "headline? considering starting his own cable empire. >> i read that part of scaramucci's memo. might actually make a good communications director. a good plan, if trying to communicate on behalf of the president. play to his strengths. >> in a vacuum. >> exactly. well, no. look, think about the obama administration videos, carried a

cinematic quality, played up to his hollywood ekz cconnections. this looks kind of like cable news. well, this is the new you in which trump thrives. i think it's -- we can laugh about the low production values but probably -- >> said it right. cable access. a little more kind of -- >> i just think it would be i neve not to think any administration would try to do whatever version fits the technological times and their brand. it's important for people to know it's not news. you like the president, want to hear what he's promoting, excited to see him, great. if you don't like the president and wanted to see what he's promotioning to get an inside track, fine. curious, fine. >> a fancy press release. >> it's just not news. that's all. >> the president doesn't do interviews with us, mainstream video but will do interviews on trump tv. >> plenty of interviews. >> welcome any tomb, mr. president. thank you so much for joining us on "inside politics." wolf blitzer is up right after a break.

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turns out, it's californians it's me and it's you. don't stop now, it's easy to add to the routine. join energy upgrade california and do your thing. hello. i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. 8:00 p.m. in moscow. 1:00 a.m. in the philippines in ma milla. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. president trump marks his 200 day in office taking direct aim at the news media and touting his base, but also facing major challenges here in the united states and indeed abroad. the president is at his golf club in new jersey. and the white house is calling it a working vacation. he tweeted today that his base is bigger and stronger than ever, despite the news media. meanwhile, in manila, secretary of state rex tillerson and